The report, “Profiles of Islamic State Leaders“, also demonstrates that the Islamic State leadership is mounting a strategically cohesive European-wide campaign of terror. Though these single-actor attacks have repeatedly been misreported as lone-wolves, the individuals are radicalised and often directed by a network; Islamic State has endorsed and suggested the action (Nice is only one of the more recent examples of such misreporting – the perpetrator was erroneously said to have self-radicalised within weeks. In fact he had been connected with a network for some time). This mistaken analysis can have devastating consequences: in 2015, the Islamic State tied down Western security services with a number of small, apparently-unrelated plots that then enabled the larger, directed attack in Paris to succeed unimpeded.

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